Recently many friends are affordable an AVCHD camcorder and Canon Vixia AVCHD, Panasonic Lumix, AVCHD, Sony Handycam are the hot models popular this year. All these AVCHD camcorders shoot 720p or 1080p footage which with rather outstanding image quality and excellent audio quality.
The problems we meet when edit AVCHD on Mac:
With iMovie: we can't import AVCHD off camera to iMovie directly. Though the latest iMovie'11 claims to support AVCHD, but the way iMovie import the AVCHD video files is coverts the AVCHD file (i.e. .mts) to an AIC file and this conversion can be lengthy depending on how you archive the mts files.
With FCP: support.apple.com in July released an article "About transferring AVCHD footage" and it list:
-AVCHD support is available only on Intel-based Macintosh computers.
-AVCHD camcorders typically connect to computers via USB 2.0, not FireWire.
-DVD-based AVCHD camcorders are not currently supported in Mac OS X.
-Standard definition video recorded with AVCHD camcorders cannot be accessed in the Log and Transfer window.
So the current situation is iMovie, FCP can't directly import AVCHD files to Mac editor. We can choose to wait the next iMovie'12 to achieve this. If you are urgent to find a way, then I recommend you use Doremisoft Mac AVCHD Editor for Mac which is used to convert AVCHD files to Mac compatible formats to edit on iMovie, FCP and iDVD.
The convert AVCHD files to Mac compatible formats:
Input AVCHD video to the program.
Select output formats for relative Mac editor, here take iMovie as example, we choose "MOV".
Do the necessary AVCHD files editing before you import to iMovie, FCP. I.e.
Crop the unwanted black edges of AVCHD camcorder files.
*Clip a single file to several parts and chooses the part you needs import to iMovie, FCP, iDVD.
*Add special effect for AVCHD videos, including Gray, Old film, Emboss, etc.
*Capture beautiful pictures from AVCHD digital recorders.
*Change video properties such as brightness, contrast, saturation, etc.
Convert AVCHD to Mac compatible formats.
